I read this article thats ruffled some feathers lately about how SEO is not a legitimate form of marketing and I think what the article says is mostly right. Yet there are a few things about SEO in my opinion that make it worthwhile. In the article it says,

Look under the hood of any SEO plan and you’ll find advice like this: make sure to use keywords in the headline, use proper formatting, provide summaries of the content, include links to relevant information. All of this is a good idea, and none of it is a secret. It’s so obvious, anyone who pays for it is a fool.

This statement is absolutely true. Ranking better in search engines is no secret. All SEO comes down to three things: keywords on your site, other sites linking to yours and having your site code formatted correctly. People in SEO make a lot of hubub on all kinds of other stuff other than those three things but in reality that’s all you need to do. A writer for Search Engine Land who replied to the above writer makes a point that I think is very valid,

Still, sometimes people have problems. And the stuff that you think isn’t rocket science — that anyone knows — is indeed a mystery to others.

The fact that this information is well known doesn’t limit it’s value and won’t keep people from wanting someone to use that knowledge on their behalf. There is plenty of information out there on how to change the oil on your car by yourself but that doesn’t make Jiffy Lube a con man. Stock brokers also come to mind as people who are paid a lot to use other people’s money in an industry over which they have no control.
Nothing is stopping businesses from learning the best practices on how to get the most out of their website but they choose to pay experts to do it for them, so what’s wrong with that?